Miller was walking through the massive building that is slowly becoming the Carmack Performing Arts Complex, a project she has spent the past few months working on with her husband, Michael Berlet, and their business partner, Raymond Elliot.

“I walked down to one end, and there was a piano lesson. I cut through the kitchen, and there was a flamenco class. I passed a Zumba class, and found a children's acting class, and then there was swing dancing for my cast going on onstage,” she said. “It was so diverse. And this is exactly what I wanted — to have all those things going on at the same time and in the same place. The building was full of life.”

The studio component was the first phase of the center to get going. Next up is this weekend's opening of the main theater space, dubbed the Pat Berlet Memorial Theatre in tribute to Miller's late mother-in-law.

“This was something she always wanted us to do,” Miller said. “This was a way we could honor her.”

“My forte is really capturing that old Cotton Club-style revue, the 1950s floor shows; that's what I want them to feel like,” Miller said. “I want a relaxed atmosphere where people can have a good time.”

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The show counts as a soft opening for the space, which is still under construction. The theater takes up the center of an area once filled with bowling lanes.

“Everything else on the outside of the main theater is going to be curtained off (for the time being),” Miller said. “The rest of those areas will be under construction through the end of March. The main theater and the bar will be open.”

Plans call for a black-box theater, a restaurant and a dance-apparel shop.